The Queue: BlizzCon Hangover

Well, that happened.

Let’s just dive in, shall we?

I watched that panel too (I thought it was Genji’s ultimate they used cookie cutters for? Did I mistake that?) and it was indeed pretty interesting. The sheer depth and breadth of the sound design and the amount of information it conveys was kind of amazing.

Honestly, while I did enjoy the visuals and most of the performances, I did find the movie’s villain and his plan extremely lacking.

We’re told offhandedly why he was doing what he was doing and he had a speech which basically amounted to “Death is bad, therefore I do my evil thing to end it” but there was no emotional core to his actions. At no point did the movie show us anything to make us feel like we understood him or what he was doing and so he just came off as a maniac. By comparison Mordo’s character arc was well established and by the time the post credits scene rolled you understand why he’d do what he does.

Considering the entire movie hinges on the villain’s plot, feeling like it’s utterly empty isn’t a good choice for the film. A simple cut scene putting faces and names on that dead family we’re offhandedly told about would have gone a long way towards establishing why he’d risk so much.

It was a good movie, visually stunning, and Cumberbatch manages to convey the intellect, ego, vanity, arrogance and fall of Strange before he becomes a mystic which you really need to see to understand him. But it could so easily have been a great movie and it just wasn’t.

Plus I admit I wanted more of Tilda Swinton. She was very good in every scene she was in.

Seriously, why do people who play Forsaken want to be Paladins? I have to admit, I don’t understand this. You’re playing a rotting corpse animated by dark magic and trapped in a hellish existence. “What are we if not slaves to this torment?”

The one example of a Paladin who is undead is Sir Zeliek, who is an extreme case and who was a controlled slave to the Lich King.

I’m not trying to be contrary here but really, this is one of those times that I actually agree with Ion’s joke. Undead probably shouldn’t be able to spec Holy. It’s just one of those things that would break the class if they actually implemented it. Who would play an Undead Priest if one of the specs didn’t work? But I remember that old AskCDev where they stated that the Holy Light cauterized the wounds of Undead players and I can’t imagine it feels good to even use the Holy Light as an Undead.

Day 2 was less of a ‘big reveal’ day and more of a ‘check out this cool panel talking about X topic’ day. Day 1 definitely felt like it was the big information dump day. But we did a series of liveblogs that covered anything that was said on Day 2, just check those out.

Honestly, I don’t know. And there are pros and cons to either approach.

“Letting players enjoy the spec they want to play” is also “introduce the headache of trying to balance two different playstyles in one spec” and historically it’s never worked. The moment they introduced SMF, they started the back and forth battle between it and Titan’s Grip for dominance and forced a whole series of attempts to balance the two against each other. Now, as a player of a Fury Warrior, I can get why they wouldn’t want to open that can of worms again. (My solution to the TG/SMF issue has always been that they should let us transmog 2h weapons to 1h weapons so if you like that look you can still have it.)

On the other hand, I completely understand that for some people Titan’s Grip isn’t what they want to play, and I know a lot of Frost players were very happy using a big 2h and not two 1h swords. Frankly, I don’t know why they didn’t let Frost get Frostmourne as an artifact instead of turning it into two swords. That still seems weird to me.

In the end, Legion puts a lot of progression into the Artifacts, a lot of character power. I don’t know how they’re going to make it worthwhile to switch away from them. All those traits empowering your abilities lost, how much of a DPS increase would a green quest sword have to be before it overpowered all those traits? It’s quite the design hurdle to overcome and I don’t know how they’re going to do it. But whatever comes next, I’d be surprised if they backtracked on the choices they made to lock specs to specific weapon choices.

I’m not saying it wouldn’t be a pleasant surprise, mind you. I have a ton of 1h weapons in my collection I never use.

As jabrone77 replied to you, it’s not that Med’an himself isn’t canonically in the Warcraft setting. They were specifically talking about him being the Guardian. Their answer was very specifically worded so that they could use him if they chose to at a later date but don’t have to, ever. It’s more accurate to say that they’re ignoring that he ended up the New Guardian with a new Council, since that kind of feel apart super fast anyway.

And honestly, at this point ignoring that is probably for the best since if Med’an was the Guardian he’d have to be fired anyway, there are demons everywhere and I haven’t seen hide nor hair of that kid.

Okay, that’s the Queue for Sunday, as we all come down from our BlizzCon high and face reality. See y’all anon.